1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to robotic media storage library systems, and more specifically to a redundant system that includes a plurality of independent robots in the form of robotic pods.
2. Background of the Invention
The current enterprise class library system contains multiple independent robots for concurrently manipulating multiple media cartridges. The library system comprises an array of media storage cells and media cartridge players. A system of rails is used to guide robotic pods through al of the locations on the array.
A problem for storage library designers is how to scale a low cost, low performance machine up to a high cost, high performance machine, while retaining as much of the original design as possible. Library performance is a factor primarily of robotics speeds and movement distances. Therefore, typical performance upgrades are found in increasing robot speeds and shrinking the size of the library in order to shorten movement distances. Such upgrades can be costly and are limited in scope by other physical parameters.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method for upgrading library performance in a piecemeal manner, which would allow a customer to pay-as-he-goes to get the desired level of performance, without having to replace complete libraries or platforms.
The present invention provides a system for scaling robotic mechanisms in a storage library. The invention comprises a plurality of storage cell rows and a plurality of robots coupled to guide rails, which allow the robots to move along the rows of storage cells. The robots have picker mechanisms that can manipulate items in the storage cells, and displacement mechanisms that allow the pickers to move between rows of storage cells. The displacement mechanisms on the robots are configurable to allow the picker mechanisms to access a specified number of storage cell rows. The displacement mechanisms of the robots can be reconfigured in order to change the number of storage cell rows covered by a single robot, and guide rails can be added and removed to accommodate different numbers and sizes of robots.